CONTINUED ---- @serpentii
❛ oh ? my brother’s wellbeing isn’t my business ?
my cousin’s wellbeing isn’t my concern ? ❜
emerald eyes were devoid of the warmth that clung to
her like the burs of thistles and weeds; dappled in her
constant smile… it was true when they said the eyes
were the window to the soul. she would spare deceit
with this lady. somedays, it was simply too hard to be
the pretender. rarely ever did she radiate a sense of
danger but the other’s words made her slip. her head
tilted, the smile stretched, iciness bled through. sharp
like a dagger, edges could cut into flesh. timberwatch
was no home of her’s, truly, but it was quite familiar to
the broken girl who had once refuged in its halls under
ebbert’s care. that was before she had disappeared,
when she swallowed the agony, and left it to fester in
her veins.
on the occasions she visited and stole ebbert away in
the desire to spend time with him, she never quite did
remain long enough to know those of timberwatch.. it
had simply never been much to her despite her eyes
here within their walls. and when she had wallowed in
her pain, her losses — what had she ever done beside
lie in a bed when she was not trying to drink herself to
death or being forced to move around by ebbert ? she
shifted. her smile was a lie, a weapon; it hide the truth
and created a degree of safety for others. ah, did they
never see? perhaps so, perhaps not. maybe this lady
would be the first to understand. it wasn’t hard to see
her for who she was
❛ would you deny me such knowledge ? ❜
The words had been snapped without thinking — she had
trouble filtering, trouble deciding what was correct to say
aloud and what wasn’t .... It wasn’t her fault for being so
defensive anyway. This woman — Oriele did not know her.
Had seen her a few times with the maester ( a man she
already found difficulty in trusting ), but had never once
interacted with her. In truth, the woman’s presence left her
uncomfortable. The smile she wore — unnatural. Oriele
herself never smiled. Never saw the need to. Aaren smiled,
Aaren laughed. She relied on his happiness to put others
at ease while she stood beside him, sharp in her gaze of icy
blue, mouth sour and twisted.
“This is not your home.” Voice, cold and even, no hint of warmth
or feeling in it at all. Was how Oriele always spoke, even to those
she had affection for. “One does not have the right to intrude on
another’s home and demand things of the people who live there.”
It was only to protect — she wondered if the other understood this.
Her family had lost so much already — Father to war, to the hands
of Whitehill scum. Mother to madness. She could not let anything
else happen to them — she refused to. They were better off without
strangers coming and going from their halls as they liked.
“You may be a friend of Ebbert’s, but you are no friend of mine. I will
not tell you a thing.”
